Houston Veterans Affairs Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety, Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Section of Health Services Research, Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA It is wartime, April 1942 and Will Emerson and Elsa Klein’s love affair has only just begun when the bombing raids of the city hit their home at Avon Lodge, Bath. Wireless research engineer Will and Austrian music lover Elsa are separated, a blinding light a precursor to the bomb falling, with Will glimpsing the shadow of his lover in the doorway of the kitchen just before he loses consciousness. Found in his garden and taken to the Royal United hospital Will is more concerned about the safety and whereabouts of Elsa and a young boy David he was trying to protect when the bomb fell. Discharging himself and waking up to the reality of the devastation around him, Will finds Avon Lodge miraculously still standing but where is Elsa? The house holds no clues as to her whereabouts, and disconcertingly no evidence remains of her existence. How can Elsa have disappeared without trace? The Frequency of Us is the story of one man’s lifetime journey to discover the truth. Throughout a refrain used constantly by Will and one she heard as young from her father runs through her head: “Everything is always happening.” Somehow this seems the key, but how? When their house is bombed by the Nazis in 1942, Will is injured, wakes up in hospital and, on his return home, finds no sign of Elsa or her possessions. Life is a radio dial; we travel along it from left to right, and on the way we discover stations that we fall in love with and cherish – then we move on and lose them. But those stations aren’t gone. They’re still transmitting. If you listen very closely, you hear their ghosts amid the static. The people we’ve loved and think we have lost, the things that moved us, they are always there, they are bright and alive, somewhere on the dial. You just have to listen.”

The Frequency of Us: A BBC2 Between the Covers book club pick

The book is a wonderful mix of humour and emotion, along with a bit of detective work as Laura tries to piece together Will's past. Did the love of his life really exist, or is it all part of the onset of dementia?

The plot was very engaging. I cannot claim to know the scientific accuracy behind the concepts mentioned in this book (It's not very heavy, don't worry) but I liked the plot and the story. It made sense to me. It also served the purpose of feeding me a good, entertaining, heartwrenching, and satisfying story. Am good with that. But some of the key elements of Laura’s character and anxiety come from my own experiences. While writing the novel, I started to come to terms with my own anxiety – throughout my career as a journalist and writer I’ve often struggled with stress, and I think that bringing Laura to life as a character helped me to understand how central stress had become in my own life. So just like her, I saw my GP and was prescribed antidepressants. There are moments in Frequency of Us that definitely come straight from me – the way Laura describes her feelings of dread at the start of each day, and the way she finds it difficult to organise herself through the fog of anxiety. But she’s also very different to me, and of course, her experiences as a woman with anxiety, especially when she moves to London, alone and suffering mental health issues, are things that I’ve had to construct from the experiences of other people. I think this is a really important part of the writing process: actually researching your character as a thinking, feeling person, rather than a list of stats. Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Texas at Houston, Memorial Hermann Center for Healthcare Quality and Safety, University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA

The Frequency of Us by Keith Stuart - LoveReading The Frequency of Us by Keith Stuart - LoveReading

This is the third book I've read by Keith Stuart and it certainly lived up to his previous form. It was beautifully written and although a little far fetched at times, it took me with it the whole way. I quite like a story that mixes historical facts with fiction. This is one of those books i don't want to say too much about as i don't want to spoil it for potential readers. This story spans two timelines, the presen day and during the war. This is another beautifully written novel. I do recommend this book. What do you think would have happened to Laura if she hadn’t escaped from the explosion/anomaly at the climax of the book? We get alternate timelines - One of the past of Will, whose memories of WWII is somehow very different from what others around him know to be true, especially when it comes to his wife. This was a book that I didn’t want to put down. The story is told in the present and the past, between 1938 and 1942, leading up to the bombing of Bath, where Will lives. The plot has you second-guessing everything you think you know. One minute you are convinced Elsa was real, the next you are not so sure, could this be all in Will’s head who suffered a breakdown and PTSD after the bombing.Seventy years later, social worker Laura is battling her way out of depression and off medication. Her new case is a strange, isolated old man whose house hasn’t changed since the war. A man who insists his fiancé vanished many, many years before. Everyone thinks he’s suffering dementia. But Laura begins to suspect otherwise . . . This was a book that I didn’t want to put down. The story is told in the present and the past, between 1938 and 1942, leading up to the bombing of Bath, where Will lives. The plot has you second-guessing everything you think you know. One minute you are convinced Elsa was real, the next you are not so sure, could this be all in Will’s head who suffered a breakdown and PTSD after the bombing? We think it’s the perfect book club choice and asked Keith to write a set of questions for book clubs to use when discussing the novel! How does Laura’s anxiety contribute to her quest to solve Will’s mystery? Is it a help as well as a hindrance? Laura becomes Will's carer, tasked with the job of deciding whether he is capable of living alone or whether he should be taken into care. He's a great character, but Laura is a good match for him.

The Frequency of Us: creating a character with anxiety The Frequency of Us: creating a character with anxiety

As the daughter of a librarian Jen's love of books started from a very early age. Her reading obsession continued throughout her teenage years when she studied both English Language and English Literature at college. Stuart keeps us in suspense as we follow the revelations of crotchety old Will and the neurotic determination of young Laura to discover what really happened to Elsa. Who was the young neighbour in Will’s wireless workshop when the bombers approached? Why did Laura’s father become aggressive towards her? Was Elsa a kraut (or a spy) – and how did playing Schubert at a party help to “save” her? What does her aunt Josephine know? And can the demolition of Will’s old house be delayed while its secrets are being unearthed?When trying to come up with a category or definition that truly fitted my reading experience I only came up with movies and plays that popped into my mind as I read, but I wouldn’t say that is because they are closely related. In any case, here they go, in case they might give you a clue: Frequency (a movie from 2000, where radios played an important part and different generations managed to communicate), Sliding Doors, Match Point (those two about the effect a small decision can have), and J.B. Priestley’s time plays, particularly two I’ve watched: An Inspector Calls, and Time and the Conways. The characters are realistic, flawed humans that are juggling and plodding on through life. Neither has had it easy. With Will sometimes living in the past and Laura still dealing with her past which is having a negative impact on her present. Thanks to NetGalley and to Little, Brown and Company UK (Clara Díaz in particular) for providing me an ARC copy of this book that I freely chose to review. Laura is taken on as a favour to her mum, as a carer in a private firm. It is her job to asses 87 year old Will and decide whether he is safe to be living in his house, or whether he should be taken into a care home. In Second World War Bath, young, naïve wireless engineer Will meets Austrian refugee Elsa Klein: she is sophisticated, witty and worldly, and at last his life seems to make sense . . . until, soon after, the couple’s home is bombed, and Will awakes from the blast to find himself alone.